This invention relates to an adjustable load securing device for vehicles having extended, load-carrying areas such as pickup trucks, vans and station wagons which have open or enclosed cargo compartments.
When such vehicles are carrying only a partial load, the load may move around during vehicle turns, acceleration and braking, potentially causing damage to the load itself or the load-carrying area of the vehicle. Thus, various devices have been proposed in the past for securing partial loads in pickup trucks, vans and the like. These are often not particularly versatile and often require modification of the vehicle body itself. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,507,033 of Boyd, side rails are attached to the side walls of a truck bed and retainers or solid partitions are movable along the side rails to secure a load. U.S. Pat. No. 4,875,730 describes a truck bed having cut-outs in which barrier panels are mounted and which may be deployed into an upright position as needed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,733,899 of Keys describes a pickup truck bed divider device which comprises a flat support plate carrying a vertical baffle. The flat support plate extends across the truck bed and abuts the wheel well.